Claimed by the scarred Alpha

MARGAUX

I stepped through the entrance and finally had the chance to look around now that the invisible barrier no longer held me.

The inside bore little resemblance to what I had imagined from the street. Whoever had converted the house into a wellness center had resisted the temptation to erase its history. The walls still carried the warmth of a home. Comfortable armchairs and well-worn sofas replaced rows of plastic seats. A bowl of polished river stones rested on a low wooden table, their smooth surfaces catching the morning light. Healthy green plants crowded the corners, leaves stretching toward broad windows left blissfully uncovered. Sunlight spilled across polished floorboards instead of harsh tiles, and the room smelled faintly of lemon balm, old wood, and freshly brewed tea.

No one waited with the restless impatience I associated with clinics. A gray-haired woman laughed quietly over a knitting project while a younger man thumbed through a battered novel with one foot tucked beneath him. Another visitor sat peacefully with her eyes closed, palms resting on her knees as though she’d come here to breathe rather than be treated. Nobody watched the clock. Nobody looked eager to leave.

The place invited people to stay.

I liked it immediately, which surprised me after a morning that had already rewritten every expectation I’d started the day with.

"I am not generally fond of spirits," Ophelia said as she followed us inside. Her voice was brisk, every word delivered without the slightest effort to soften itself for strangers. "Not all of them are charming. Quite a few are remarkably persistent after being told no."

She gestured toward the doorway behind us.

"Hence the mechanism at the entrance. I apologize for the inconvenience."

She crossed the room without hesitation, greeting two visitors with absent-minded nods before stopping in front of Prim. Her attention narrowed. She studied the shifting blob with the concentration of a physician confronted by an illness she’d never encountered before.

"What happened to this spirit?"

"She was attacked," I said. "Last night. I still don’t know everything that happened. Right now she can only answer yes or no by changing colors."

Ophelia’s gaze shifted to Arania.

The tiny fae was already drifting toward Prim, sunlight pouring through her translucent wings until fractured ribbons of color scattered across the nearby walls.

"Let me examine her," Arania said. Her voice remained impossibly clear despite her size, carrying through the room as easily as anyone else’s. "My first suspicion is severe spiritual depletion. If that’s all it is, I may be able to restore enough energy for proper communication."

"I hope you’re right," I murmured.

"So do I."

Ophelia turned toward a cluster of chairs beside the windows.

"Everyone, sit." She spoke as though the matter had already been decided. "I made lemonade this morning."

Before anyone could answer, she disappeared through an open doorway.

She returned moments later balancing a tray laden with glasses and a large pitcher beaded with condensation. Ice clinked softly as she poured each drink without asking whether anyone wanted one. Refusal clearly wasn’t a possibility she’d bothered accounting for.

The lemonade smelled fresh enough that I found myself reaching for the glass before I’d consciously decided to.

I settled into one of the armchairs and watched Ophelia over the rim.

She wasn’t the woman I’d imagined from the head healer’s descriptions.

Time and perhaps stress had silvered strands of her dark hair without diminishing the sharpness in her eyes. She met every person directly, never glancing away first, never searching for approval. I figured years of standing apart from other people had settled into her posture until it looked less like isolation and more like quiet certainty.

"My brother tells me you’ve come because you want to break some witch marks."

"To be frank, that’s part of it."

I wrapped both hands around the cool glass.

"But honestly, plenty of it is because I still don’t understand what I am, or what I’m actually capable of. I’d rather answer those questions first. After that, I’ll worry about whether breaking witch marks is even possible."

"When did it begin?"

I looked up.

"The sight," she clarified. "Seeing spirits. Interacting with them."

"Recently. Within the last few weeks."

Even saying it aloud sounded ridiculous.

"It happened almost overnight. Every day since then has been... bigger than the last."

Ophelia and Arania exchanged a glance.

It lasted no more than a heartbeat, but entire sentences seemed to pass silently between them.

"That’s unusual," Ophelia said at last. "Most whisperers begin seeing fragments in childhood. Adolescence is even considered unusually late." She rested one hand against her glass. "I was six when I first started seeing threads woven through living things."

"I know how impossible it sounds."

"It doesn’t."

Her answer came immediately.

"I believe you."

She didn’t study my face for signs of deception. She didn’t hesitate. She simply accepted what I’d said.

"Which means something interrupted your development when it should have begun."

Her eyes lingered on me thoughtfully.

"Something closed that door."

Arania drifted away from Prim and floated toward me instead.

She circled once, slowly enough that I could study the delicate lattice inside her wings. The translucent membranes caught the sunlight differently every time they tilted, splitting it into shifting bands of gold, blue, and green that rippled over my sleeves.

"You were bound," she said.

I frowned.

"What does that mean?"

Ophelia set her glass down with a quiet click.

"It means exactly what it sounds like. Someone sealed your abilities before they could fully develop. They built a working around your spirit and locked the door before it ever opened."

She folded her hands loosely in her lap.

"The goal is usually protection. Whisperers attract attention, and not all of that attention comes from things anyone would want following a child. Whoever did this likely understood what you were and decided an ordinary life was the kinder gift."

My thoughts snagged on the word Child.

Someone had looked at me, known what I would become, and hidden it from the world.

Part of me wondered if it was mother, given what Étienne had said, even if she had decided to lie about it.

"Then why now?" I asked quietly. "Why did it suddenly stop working?"

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